Strategic Pillars & Initiatives

Division chiefs and vice chairs organized a SWOT analysis against their division activities and the departmental mission. Department Chair Leonard Egede, MD, also held listening sessions with each division, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences leadership, clinical partners and community partners to gather a comprehensive understanding of issues and challenges.

The department hosted four leaders in health care to conduct an external evaluation. Evaluators met with division chiefs, vice chairs, faculty, hospital leadership and UB leadership. From this evaluation, they developed a series of recommendations based on their experience.

With all the feedback and recommendations, Dr. Egede developed the vision, mission and strategic goals, which were shared with the department via the department newsletter, The Catalyst.

The half-day strategic planning retreat began by reviewing the results of the three activities from 2024.

The goal of the retreat was to get broad participation from key stakeholders across our five strategic pillars (clinical, research, education, faculty & staff development, and community engagement). We broke into two groups for each of the pillars and developed at least two goals and three tactics for each goal. In addition to the pillars, we had a team that focused specifically on branding and how to strengthen the Department of Medicine and UBMD-Internal Medicine brands. Those in attendance were challenged to think broad and aspirational.

The strategic goals and tactics developed identified below will guide workgroups in identifying the guidance, practices, infrastructure and resources needed to move our department and practice plan forward in the midst of our continually changing world of academic medicine.